TaoCraft Tarot / Sage Sips blog

Collective Card of the Week: 16 June 2025

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TWO OF WANDS (reversed) Don’t use planning as an excuse to delay or to be too rigid. Be adaptable. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Roll with the punches if you have to but stop yearning and start doing.

“There are only four rules you need to remember: Make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan.”
“Captain Cold” (DC comics)

Weekend Oracle: Keep Clearing

Sage Sips is tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

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This is a direct continuation of the energy we saw in the Action Eases Anxiety: Clear Away post from Wednesday

“Keep cutting away the unnecessary to find (and protect) the blessings beneath” Precision and minimalism are your allies. It is a time for scalpels, not sledgehammers.” Intuitively comes through here.

The key point of this card, as I understand it, is that personal growth is a double edged sword. The reversal of the card feels significant here, pointing toward shadow work in particular. It is painful to face the darker side of ourselves, but leads to peace and emotional health in the long run.

Shadow work is the emotional equivalent of a blade that cuts through our defenses causing painful feelings – but opening the way to calmer, more peaceful, more fulfilling emotions as well.

“We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.”
Alan Watts

This is the same energy seen in the Heart and the Crane Lenormand cards from our previous reading. Cut away the excess. Clear away the unneeded. Love exists, whole and complete but obscured, just like the beauty within Michelangeo’s sculpture:

“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”
Michelangelo

In this orientation, the sword on the Blessings oracle card resembles the Ace of Swords, which is associated with clarity and truth among other things. The Lenormand reading, the Oracle reading and the hinted-at RWS tarot card all point toward the same basic idea: simplify, clarify, do the hard personal growth work to uncover the obscured now and it will reveal great benefit in the end.

You can be yourself with me. Happy pride month!

Deck: Alleyway Oracle of Secrets by Seven Dane Asmund used with permission from Publishing Goblin LLC

Sage’s Sip: Essence of Balance

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

The two of pentacles is the classic card of “balance.” Of course this echoes the classic Taoist idea of “balance” of opposites, or the harmony of opposites. It takes two to tango as the saying goes, so in a broad, general way, it takes at least two things to strike a balance.

Often that balance is between static and dynamic, stillness and motion.

Balance is an important concept. It has both a major and a minor arcana card to carry its message. Temperance talks about balance from a grand, life-lesson point of view.

The two of pentacles talks about balance from a practical, down-to-earth, an action-to-take-now point of view.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.“
Albert Einstein

The two of pentacles is particularly about balance in motion. Life is movement. Life is change. To stay in relative balance – to stay functional, really – we are in a state of constant adaptation.

My favorite example is a unicycle rider who is always making constant small adjustments to stay in balance. If they aren’t moving full-on forward, they move little bits forward and backward in one small spot to stay upright.

Or think of a wrestler or a judo match. Planting your feet and staying still might seem strong and immovable, but staying rigid and not moving makes you susceptible to being tipped over if you are pushed. But if you take a step with the push – roll with the punches if you will – then you are less likely to fall flat on the mat.

One foot up, one foot down. Movement, or at least the ability to adapt and move, gives you greater balance overall and can protect you from a fall – literally and figuratively.

Tune in tomorrow for “Weekend Oracle” with the Alleyway Oracle of Secrets deck. Proceeds from your private readings, memberships and virtual coffees all support this free, no-paywall blog and the free newsletter on Substack.

See you at the next sip!

Action Eases Anxiety: Clear Away

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

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It’s an ancient idea. Buddhist teaching long ago realized that taking action – or even making a decision or making a plan of action – can ease worry and anxiety. Practice and role play are a crucial part of emergency training.

Action eases anxiety, even in tarot. Knowing your energy environment and thinking about a good next step can go a long way to easing turbulent emotions.

Today’s Energy

THE HEART: Hope and love exist. It is near, but tangled in the maze and weeds of daily living. Don’t lose the forest in the trees as the saying goes. Don’t lose the love in the background noise, either.

Next Step

THE CRANE: Something new must deliberately be created. Clear away the mindless, the outdated, the harmful, that which has lost usefulness and the love and hope surrounding you will become clear. It is like Michelangelo’s sculpting method:

“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”
― Michelangelo

The love and hope energy is already there.

Clear away the extra and unneeded, and love will emerge.

Week Ahead Tarot: Personal Perspective

Sage Sips is tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

Pause the video. Think of a question, topic or simply the week ahead of you. Choose the card that feels right or that you feel most drawn to. Even if you see the card first – even if you see the card AND read the interpretations before choosing your card, the choice is still valid. You can do all of that and still choose both. Or neither.

Your inner wisdom, your own good intuition still leads the choice. The whole point is that there IS a choice – and it is all yours. You’ll know the right guidance for you when you see it.

THE FOOL: Perspective is everything. A fresh look is a fresh start. Know all the angles before committing to an action or an opinion.

QUEEN OF WANDS: You are the ruler of your inner kingdom. Queen’s lead through example and nurturing. Keep yourself strong in order to be of greatest help to others.

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Weekend Oracle: One Touch

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin”
William Shakespeare

Yes, by all means, go touch grass this weekend. Or any time.

I forget the source, but somebody somewhere did a small study of the effects of looking at photos of natural settings on real time blood pressure. Just looking at nature in a photo will bring blood pressure down.

Imagine what a small barefoot walk in the grass can do.

I don’t know if anyone has gone full science on it, or followed up the long term effects of engaging with nature on one level or another, even a photographic one.

It seems to me that one touch of nature is a good thing for humans, both psychologically and physiologically. We are wired that way.

It also seems to me that human nature is part of the nature that Shakespeare mentions, even though I doubt he meant it that way as he lived and wrote centuries before the advent of modern psychology. The Taoists were down with the whole idea centuries before Shakespeare.

Feeling connected is a basic human need, for everyone everywhere, throughout time. This weekend touch grass. If not the literally, touch something that is part of your own nature to enjoy. Enjoy some small part of the environment you are in, including urban ones. When you enjoy any little anything, you are connected to not only that thing, but all of your fellow humans that enjoy that thing too.

An ice cream cone, a barefoot walk in the backyard, a bike ride, jog in the park, a little phone scroll, a cup of coffee and a good book, play your favorite song just a little bit louder than usual; whatever it is in your nature to enjoy, touch that. As long as it harms no one, do what you will to paraphrase a saying. Touch your happiness, and you can connect with the energy of all the others who have found a similar joy.

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Find Your Tribe

Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

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Today’s energy: Ten of Swords

Failures, obstacles, and betrayals take time to heal even as life demands that healing. The more painful the experience, the stronger the message that this is not the path for you.

You are not your failures, unless you accept them as such. Take them as a message and an opportunity to learn or to change direction then suddenly painful setbacks are just signposts along your way.

Next Step: Nine of Cups

This is a card of community and celebration. Found family heals. Found community supports. Your true tribe is a place of love and acceptance wherever and whoever they may be.

Your true tribe is the people and places that energize you, uplift you, comfort you, and make you feel most deeply at home. Only you can who your tribe is. No one can tell you who your tribe should be.

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The Core

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

“At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one’s lost self.”
Brendan Behan, poet

Though not as extreme as the passion, lust and desire embodied in the major arcana Lovers card, and despite the overlay of watching, waiting, and expecting, there is a wistful, yearning quality to the two of wands.

The Lovers asks what is your passionate flaming desire.

The Two of Wands asks what is your nagging, persistent emptiness? What is your constant yearning? Sometimes this is the greater motivator and the greater suffering by virtue of being a constant companion.

You have another constant companion – yourself.

Summer Schedule

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

There still isn’t one. The squirrels have been raging hard the past few weeks.

I’m liking the one card meditation posts, so will continue those for the time being sprinkled in between week ahead, choose your own tarot card, weekend Oracle and Action Eases Anxiety type posts.

The $5 tarot reading by email special ends tomorrow (31 May 2025) so get one while you can at https://ko-fi.com/taocrafttarot/commissions

As always, no appointment is needed for email readings. Order any time 24/7. Most readings arrive to you within 24 hours or so. Sometime there are delays when you order on weekends or around holidays. These readings are all just me, one real person with no Tarot assistance, AI or otherwise.

Fingers crossed, the squirrely-ness will settle now, at least a little bit.

See you Sunday or Monday with a choose your own card week-ahead reading!

Long Holiday Weekend

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

Your favorite simple comforts transform into great treasures when you give them your full attention for a minute. – Sage

I’m taking a couple of days off for the Memorial Day weekend here in the US, but private readings and the ko-fi page are still open for orders. Readings will go out next week starting Tuesday 5-27-25. Happy and safe weekend to everyone everywhere!